Memories
by FireSeeker
Summary: One-shot: Remy has never understood Rogue. But he’s always Known her, loved her, faults and all. And that’s why it scares him. That memories might not be enough to keep her alive.


Title: Memories 

Author: FireBringer

Pairings: Remy/Rogue

Genre: Tragedy/Romance

Summery: One-shot: Remy has never understood Rogue. But he's always Known her, loved her, faults and all. And that's why it scares him. That memories might not be enough to keep her alive.

_"Oh, little boy, you know nothing." She sneered, green eyes glinting as he stepped closer._

_"Y'so sure 'bout dat, chere?" he replied, suave grin in place, muscles tense just in case he pushed her too far and he found himself waking up the next day in the medic room, a volcanic headache his only achievement from the previous days activities. _

_"Yes." She said, so certain of her own conviction that he paused for a moment, unsure. "Ah've had you in mah head, remember?"_

_Remy grinned. "Oui, dat y'have, cherie. But even wit de disgust ye still seem to always come back f'r more." At her raised eyebrows and furious pools of emerald, he chuckled, adding suggestively: "You an' the little Remy in yer head 'ave some parties, chere?"_

_He woke up the following afternoon sure he'd been hit by lightning._

But these were only memories…and not exactly solid memories either. Had she really looked that enticing, with wild white streaked hair crackling with an electricity of its own and eyes so intense they seared his skin and blood with every passion filled glance? No one, certainly, could turn him on that much in such a short space of time.

But then again, it was _her_. And what he remembered of her felt so full of truth that he couldn't deny the way she made him feel. Every day that he saw her, felt her power of will and skin he was sure that he was going to explode without hearing her voice or opinions or just seeing that life behind her cold exterior, that dazzled him with its vitality and force of love for life.

But this was not her now. He'd grown restless and idiotically defiant against this perfect life that Xavier had set out for him and without a single backward glance, not even to see her watching him from the gate, he'd disappeared into the wilds of the street and the beckoning arms of voluptuous women who could do so much better than guys like him but didn't believe they could. In the feral back streets, he'd learnt to push the memories of Xavier's into the back of his mind and enjoy what had once been his life.

It took him seven weeks to understand that the streets were not his life anymore. He'd been embraced by comfort and spoilt by the attentions of good people and with a heavy heart he'd left what had been his playground and returned, tail tucked firmly between his legs, to home.

It took him another good full week to understand that things were not the same anymore.

Xavier had taken to staying for longer periods in Cerebro, away from the running of the school, leaving Storm to handle the students. Which didn't bother anything but his curiosity. New kids had arrived, all equally screwed up as the next, and one tried to set him on fire. But, hey, kids will be kids. Didn't bother him at all. Relationships had changed within his group and he felt a little like an outcast but who cared, they were still like family.

But then there was her.

Watchful, quiet, thoughtful girl, with white stripes in her hair and odd stares in her eyes, deep jade that were almost black with pensive thoughts. Except she wasn't supposed to be watchful. She was the girl who was clumsy to the point of endangering her life but once in the Danger Room, could beat him hands down. She wasn't supposed to be quiet. She was the abusive girl who threw sniping comments in his direction and always gave him a challenge. And, damn it, she wasn't supposed to be thoughtful. She was supposed to be strong-minded and fierce, the only one who didn't treat him with strained kindness and concern like he was a baby with a finger on the trigger.

She was _her,_ damn it, and wasn't supposed to change. That was why he liked her. Because she was…_her_. And the moonbeams that ran underneath her skin, notes and bells that rang at a distance, that shone underneath her skin like a candle through closed fingers, wasn't supposed to be dulled like that. Wasn't supposed to be so veiled, like she had something to hide. Like she was a lie waiting to deconstruct on poisoned lips.

He'd never understood her, but he'd loved her and he'd traced every line of her face, every scar on her soul and he'd _known_ her, and even if it wasn't understanding and sympathy it was at least comprehension of what made her _her_ and, overall, a loving acceptance of all her faults and a lack of needing to change her.

Wasn't that love?

So they fought and they were sometimes cruel to each other but they never demanded the other to change, and love wasn't something soft and tender. It was abrasive and could hurt but that pain was oddly healing, as if the soul needed it. It seemed that 'to love' you needed to be a masochist as well.

He'd never told her this of course. Why should he, when telling her sweet Shakespearean words were simply silver sweet wrappings luring her into bed. He didn't want to have to use words to communicate how he felt. He wanted to believe that she understood without having to question.

And, when he returned, she didn't question. She simply stopped speaking to him at all.

It was an odd sensation, not having her taunting voice stood over him at every given opportunity, or her biting retorts from underneath him when he tackled her in school halls. And when he questioned she moved with the awkwardness of someone holding back a truth and left without answering. She simply waited and watched and wandered in and out of his vision like a spectre, always disappearing. Always staring with such sad, sad eyes.

It was an emotion he wasn't acquainted with within her. But the sadness was tangible; a thick sticky mess of blackness that surrounded her whole form and seemed to suffocate her. This…this he couldn't comprehend.

The others, the one's he dared to call friends, the one's she called family, were too caught up in their own dramas to take notice of the change. They simply seemed grateful for the lull in caustic fights that had often left many shocked. They didn't seem to want to take notice of the sudden shadow that had swallowed her whole and left only a ghost behind.

"Stop dis. Right now!" he'd demanded, not so long ago, cornering her, trapping her, forcing her to suffocate on the blackness and pass some of it to him because god damn he wasn't going to let her take only herself down. If she was falling, he was going down with her.

"Remy –" her voice had dwindled, usually so adamant to take some of his Time and steal his words, but now slipping under his and letting them fade, collapse on her lips like broken wings, flopping pathetically against flight. It had made him angry.

"I don't care what bug has crawled up y'r ass an' died, chere, but you better dig it out soon, capice?" he'd hissed, so cruel, but so was love and she knew that. She had to. Even though with big broken glass shards for eyes she stared at him and then fell away into shadows.

"Ah don't have Time for this, Remy." Her voice had put emphasis on the T in time, capitalising it, making it a word of power that sent a chill down his spine. She'd turned away. "Please, leave meh alone. Find a safe place and dig yourself under a rock. And don't come out. _Please_."

Such desperation and pain underlined her features, tearing at the contours of her face until the lines of her were made hazy, dream-like, a ghostly apparition from beyond the grave. She'd walked away from him like someone in a different world, picking her way through obstructions he couldn't see, monsters that seemed to strike only the one's chosen to see them in a different sight. She'd walked like someone who understood the workings of the world and had a sudden…_Knowing_ of things unspoken.

He didn't want to admit it, but she was frightening him.

All these thoughts passed through his mind in less than Time can count, culminating in one single mindset as he struggled to his feet and scanned the fighting mutants for the girl with white stripes in her hair.

She was nowhere to be found.

The attack had come out of nowhere, some sort of Human Activist group who did not want Super Sapiens polluting their world. Mutants might have been the more powerful of the races, but against sheer number and guns they were being pushed back quickly. Storm was trying to hold off a mass to the left while Bianca – demure and kind with the power to change things into metal – tried to hurry the students down into the shelter of the Blackbird.

Cyclops, holding off the main group at the front, was back to back with Wolverine in a sudden comradeship that made Remy stare for a moment before whirling his staff out to knock one attacker off his feet. Still concerned with looking for the allusive girl, he at first did not understand the screaming coming from his right. His staff whipped to his side, red on back eyes scanning for the source of the terror, only to find young Kitty Pryde, stood behind a valiant IceMan, staring at him with open-mouthed horror.

He hadn't felt the pain at first. Just a twinge. But that gradually built up to a sense of…wrongness. As if the world was tilting, unbalanced, and he crashed to the ground in front of the human had had tripped up, an old man who was staring at his gun in horror. Remy blinked, not understanding, and wondered why he felt so…numb.

Sounds filtered in and out of his hearing, gunshots and strong bolts and cries as people went down, and Kitty's voice – _"We've got to do something!"_ – and Cyclops's grim reply – _"We can't, Kitty. He's dieing."_

He was beginning to feel the pain, but it still didn't understand, connect, register in his brain. To him, he was just waking up from a nightmare, hung between that Time when you're beginning to grow aware of the real world but are still held in the tense grip of pain or fear from your dream.

He didn't see the astonishment of the attackers or his team mates when Rogue stepped in, casually laying a hand against Storm's ankle until, with renewed vigour, the weather witch blasted the Activist group with a wind so strong and controlled that they were pushed back through the doors and down the road, left to gain their bearings while the mutants recovered. Didn't see them part as if for a God, and watch with growing unease as she knelt by Remy and took off her gloves.

He only became aware of her when she touched his face, gloveless, absorbed, cried soft tears like wishes across his skin and swept him up into a world where she was the light and again so full of passion and life and was _her_. He realised, with mounting warmth, that she was letting him go without the pain. Felt it disappear.

"It doesn't even hurt anymore." He whispered, offering a brief grin, but a shadow of his normal smirk, not even recognizing that his teammates were begin to call her name with tears in their voices, but were held back by something that froze their limbs. Didn't notice as Wolverine turned, having sniffed out the traitor, and snarled at Charles Xavier as he watched at the back, distressed eyes closing so not to see what was happening.

Only when his vision didn't go dark, when he heard the screams of his teammates, only when he felt her crumble by his side did things begin to clear. He sat up and ran a hand down his side, feeling the hole in his uniform and the perfect skin underneath, turned to look at her with dawning comprehension and touched her side, the bleeding, gaping hole that echoed his, understood that she had been hiding so much more than a lie.

An evolution in power.

The way she could absorb injuries.

He swallowed, touched her shoulder, and tried to ignore the shattered green bulbs of her gaze, no longer lit and infused with light.

"Rogue?"

_She turned to him, a wicked smile twitching at her lips. "You are such a…a _boy_." She said, as if this was some sort of weak characteristic she despised. He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. _

_"Remy knows dis, chere. He gets t'look at Remy Junior evr'yday." He replied, leering at her. "Could show you too, if y'wish."_

_Her biting laughter was something he relished in, because there was a light underneath it that purified him like no drink could. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and put her arms around his neck, lightly running a gloved finger over the sensitive skin there. _

_"Ah might take you up on that, swamp rat." She murmured. "But not right now. We've got a physics exam to study for."_

_"What?" he demanded, eyes widening. She looked back at him. "Merde."_

_"I knew yah'd forget. Yah memory is like a fish." She said with a small smile. "What would yah do without meh, eh?" _

_Her words made him pause, and when she finally met his searching eyes they were uncharacteristically serious, and he knew he'd startled her._

_"Y'leave me, chere," he whispered with a deadly promise on his tongue, "'N I'll follow y'to Hell, y'understand?" _

_He knew that they weren't really a couple, that their relationship was something destructive and strange to the sights of others, but it was theirs damn it and he knew he loved her and he knew she loved him, and though they couldn't have touch they instead thrived on words, though words were always the part that tore at them and poisoned them because they could never say how they felt. _

_The look she gave him was fierce._

_"Yah do that, swamp rat, and ah'll kick yah right back up here, yah understand?" she replied, intense. "There'll be a time when yah have tah give meh up, Remy. Ah ain't as strong as you, and if that means ah die in your place, so be it."_

_He frowned._

_"Rogue –"_

_"Leave it, Remy." She said, dismissing it. She shot a quick, sardonic grin over her shoulder, emerald eyes shining. "Ah expect yah to remember that, even with your shot to hell memory." _

He sighs and draws his hand back from the gravestone, the memories washing over him. There are parts, he knew, that are sketched over, and feelings that he has minimised to lessen the pain, or made more of to heighten the feeling of her. But one thing he is sure of, is that thinking of her that way is the only way he is able to remember her. Because, he knows now, she was so full of life and was so enticing and he was – is – so much in love with her, even if he couldn't say it. He smiles and throws back his head, staring at the sky.

"I don't want to." He says softly. "But I empathise. I comprehend. And I accept. Ok, Rogue?" There is shrill laughter from behind and he lowers his head, his smile dimming but not lessening in intensity. "And I think…I think I understand."

_"Hey, swamp rat, get yourself a haircut, yah look like a rat that's been electrocuted." she called, rolling by on skates, bright pink, obviously Kitty's. He reached out and grabbed her, holding her wrists together so that she couldn't rid herself of her gloves, and kissed her. Brief but severe, it ended as soon as it had begun. Rogue looked at him suspiciously. _

_"Yah sure yah got all your marbles still intact, sugah?" she asked, eyeing him distrustfully. He smiled ruefully. _

_"Sure Remy does." He replied. "Just wanted t'taste the Southern Bell, chere." _

_"Yah need to get a new obsession, swamp rat." She sniffed, extracting herself from his grip. _

_"Remy only wants you, cherie." he grinned and made as if to catch her again, but she simply gave him a pointed look and rolled away. "Where y'goin'? Remy is lustin' 'ere!"_

_"Go find a tree tah hump or somthin'." She said dismissively. _

"I'm hurt, chere, hurt!" he laughed, clutching at his chest. She waved a gloved hand, unconcerned, but then shot him a small smile over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner. Remy sighed. It wasn't much, and it was early days yet, but…it was enough.

His lips part and a breath hisses quietly between his teeth. The memories…yeah.

It was enough.


End file.
